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Black & Decker LED SnakeLight, BDCF4SL

Design4.5

Build Quality5

Features4.5

Performance5

Total Rating:19/20

Last week we briefly discussed Kobalt’s Hypercoil LED worklight, a new flexible-neck flashlight. A couple of readers commented about how the Hypercoil LED product reminded them of Black & Decker’s SnakeLight worklight.

Well, here’s some good news, and not just for those who have fond memories of Black & Decker’s original SnakeLight products. The SnakeLight is back and it’s better than ever!

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Black & Decker has come out with a new SnakeLight, model BDCF4SL, which features a 10-LED flashlight head, a built-in rechargeable 4V Max Lithium-ion battery, and a flexible neck.

Flexible Neck for Infinite Adjustability

All of Black & Decker’s SnakeLight flashlights have had a similar design – the light source and power source are at different ends of a flexible hose, and attach together for storage or simpler use. This one is no different.

The new Black & Decker SnakeLight measures about 27 inches long when fully outstretched, and close to 14 inches when closed and bent in half.

Black & Decker isn’t kidding when they say the SnakeLight can wrap around anything. I bent the double-upped hose into a question mark shape and suspended the flashlight from a shelf. Then I opened it up and wrapped it around a table leg. Finally, I formed the flexible hose into a triangular base and had the flashlight self-supported on the floor.

Connecting and disconnecting the battery power source end to the LED flashlight end is fairly quick and simple. They just fit together, with minimal fuss.

As for the flexible hose itself, the outer material is soft, rubbery, and very grippy. It feels very durable and should endure plenty of use and abuse. The inner hose feels like Loc-Line or a similar modular hose. I adjusted the SnakeLight into many different positions, and never felt like the internal hose was about to snap or break apart.

The hose material is soft enough that you can wrap it around your neck, arm, or shoulder, without much discomfort. One of Black & Decker’s product packaging images show the flashlight wrapped around the back of someone’s neck, and I have to say – positioning the SnakeLight in this manner isn’t at all uncomfortable.

LED Brightness, Quality, Performance

The new SnakeLight worklight only outputs 44 lumens of light. Only 44 lumens. I emphasized the only part because I know some readers will scoff at this on-paper measure of brightness.

A few years ago, everyone wanted flashlights with higher wattage LEDs. 3W? Not enough. 5W? Not enough. 10 LEDs, each at 5W? Woo! Now, it’s all about lumens, a seemingly magical specification that people cannot seem to get enough of.

The 1AA Zebralight H502W LED headlamp flashlight we recently reviewed emits 50 lumens on the medium setting. In other words, the new SnakeLight, with its 10 LEDs and 4V Max battery, is out-powered by a teeny tiny 1.5V flashlight with just a single LED.

With something like this, I don’t care about lumens. Or lux and foot-candles. You shouldn’t care either.

The SnakeLight is reasonably bright, and certainly bright enough for a large majority of around-the-home and shop use. It’s bright enough for use as a flashlight, task light, work light, and auto glove box emergency light. It’s not very bright, but it’s far from being pathetically dim.

Light quality is quite good, too. The beam angle appears to be wide, but side-spill is very dim – this is much more of a spotlight than a floodlight. In the following image, the side-spill is barely evident at the dark corners.

The center spot is a bit brighter, and seems to carry a slightly blue or purplish tint. In practice, I didn’t notice this until I pointed the beam at a white wall and ceiling for the umpteenth time during testing.

Grip and Ergonomics

The SnakeLight is comfortable to hold and use – as it very well should be. Black & Decker has had many years to perfect the SnakeLight design, and indeed they had.

The flashlight head and power end tail are a little wide when closed and coupled together, but can still be easily managed.

I wanted to show you this closeup of the grip overmold and hose, not to highlight how they’re great dust magnets, but to show how they’re made from soft polymers and not hard plastic.

You should also be able to see why the hose works so well to grip anything it’s wrapped around. The ribs are wide, rounded, soft, rubber, and stretchy – a great combination.

Charging

Here is the part I am not exactly thrilled about, and why I knocked some fractional points off the rating.

Design-wise, I don’t quite get why Black & Decker opted for the SnakeLight to be charged via 9V wall adapter rather than mini- or micro-USB.

Feature-wise, this exposed plug would make me hesitant to use the SnakeLight in environments where it could get wet or covered in dust. I really wish the SnakeLight was at least weather-resistant, but there’s no mention of an IP rating at all.

The charging procedure discussed in the product manual is pretty specific, and says that the SnakeLight requires an initial 16-hour charging time. After that, a full charge takes 12 hours.

There is a bolded and underlined note – Recharge discharged batteries as soon as possible after use or battery life may be greatly diminished. For longest battery life, do not discharge batteries fully. It is recommended that the batteries be recharged after each use.

There does not seem to be any charging light indicator, which I didn’t miss. LED indicators aren’t very useful for products designed to be left charging overnight.

For Household Use Only

The SnakeLight was designed and tested as a consumer household product, and is also warrantied as such. Just something to keep in mind.

Conclusion

Overall, I am deeply fond of the new Black & Decker LED SnakeLight. It is marvelously adjustable, immensely versatile, superbly built, and very nicely engineered. But it is not perfect – the LEDs could be brighter and whiter, and the battery could be quicker to charge and with a USB plug instead of a compact wall-wart adapter.

I gave the SnakeLight a rating of 19/20, meaning there is very little room for improvement. I was tempted to dock another point, or fraction of a point, for the absence of multiple brightness levels, but with an output of 44 lumens, there’s no need for a lower setting.

In terms of build quality and real-world performance, I could find no shortcomings. The SnakeLight is as good as it gets, at least as far as consumer products go.

I feel that the SnakeLight is an exceptionally good around-the-home worklight, and strongly recommend it. If you need more than 44 lumens of brightness, or more than 5 hours of runtime per charge, you’ll probably want to shop around for something else. For everyone else – buy one, you won’t regret it.

You say in the review:
“Design-wise, I don’t quite get why Black & Decker opted for the SnakeLight to be charged via 9V wall adapter rather than mini- or micro-USB.”

Is that a typo? It should be 4V based on the sticker on the device and the molded section? Plugging a 9V adapter into a device made for 4V is a sure-fire way to fry it… which also explains why no USB charging? (USB is 5V)

Too bad about the battery warning… sounds like they’re using old tech? I can see a lot of early lives for SnakeLights going forward; people just don’t want to worry about things like battery health anymore.

Nope, that’s not a typo. The charger is a very small black box wall adapter with 9V 100 mAh output.

I don’t think they’re using old tech – the charging recommendations are probably to ensure that the idle charge can last those up to 18 months as advertised.

For a $30-45 cordless tool with built-in rechargeable battery, there’s not much more the B&D team could have done to make it better. I suppose that a USB charging port would have necessitated more complex electronics.

Usually, battery warnings like that indicate they’ve skimped on the battery control circuitry. There might not be a low charge cutoff circuit to prevent over-discharging LiIon cells (doing so immediately damages the cells and can make them unusable) or the circuit is poorly designed. B&D might be using the same charger used on the Gyro screwdriver. I personally would rather there be a micro USB connector instead on all of those type tools. This only works if there is only a single cell needing a maximum of 4.2 volts for charging. a tool with a pair of cells wouldn’t receive enough voltage from a USB charger, if any of these tools actually use such a cell arrangement. The 9volt charger covers those.

I had the original Snake Lights in years past, they were handy. The incandescent versions put off far less than 44 lumens and still fit a need just fine. I had the “Versa-Pack” versions later on, and I got rid of them due to the battery packs giving out in a year no matter how well cared for.

I am fairly certain that the SnakeLight’s battery is a single 3.6V Li-ion cell.

I always thought that long charging times indicate less sophisticated and cheaper batteries and charging components, but it could also be to prevent heat built up. The SnakeLight’s built-in battery is completely sealed within the housing, so much that a fast-charging battery would heat up rapidly and possibly damage itself. Charging at a slower rate should help avoid this, extending the battery’s usable lifetime.

Have tried both and I prefer the one from Lowes. More versatile. At night the focusing beam is amazing and working under a cabinet the 360 degree light is perfect. Great for a hunter. Carried the B&D back for a refund. Thanks for reviews.

The B&D is still less than $40 via Amazon. I don’t know where you’re seeing $60.

Yes, you can get the Kobalt for cheaper, and the Kobalt has different capabilities that some might find more appealing. But the Black & Decker flex arm adjusts more securely and is overall better built.

In my opinion, neither product is all-around better than the other, although I do prefer the Snakelight over the Hypercoil by a small margin.

I find it amusing that you claim no one should worry about Lumens or brightness. This B&D Snake Light is like having the Kobalt Hypercoil, set on low with 1/3 battery power remaining. that’s just a ridiculous statement to make. Do you know why Police have Spot Lights. Yup, it’s so they can see !!!! The Brighter the BETTER !!